EA’s Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore discussed his thoughts on the eSports scene and hopes for the future…
“We’ve all gone online and had our asses kicked by obnoxious 12 year olds,” he said. “Matchmaking is the base of the pyramid. That’s the essence of enjoyment – appropriate competition. The beauty of what we’re in here in competitive gaming, is that ‘yes you can’. You absolutely can, if you’ve got the dedication, if you’ve got the motivation, the basic skill levels”
“I grew up in Liverpool. I wanted to play for Liverpool, but I was never going to play for Liverpool. It didn’t matter how much I practiced, I just didn’t have it. The beauty of what we’re in here in competitive gaming, is that ‘yes you can’. You absolutely can, if you’ve got the dedication, if you’ve got the motivation, the basic skill levels. It doesn’t require the physicality, the genetic luck that real athletes often have on their side. It’s very different, and it’s very opportunistic. This is a massive opportunity.
“Diversity is at the core of what we believe at EA. If you follow us at all you’ll know how important diversity is to us. Not just gender but sexuality, colour, race, you name it. I think we all understand the challenges there. The equation online, that everyone understands, tends to be: audience plus anonymity equals douchebag. That is the world we live in, unfortunately. As publishers, developers, administrators we need to ensure that people don’t knock women, people of colour. Whether that’s via Twitter, harrassment in their headphones. Our goal is to make games for everyone. It’s a very simple edict. We’re somewhere around 25-28% female customers so an environment were you can administrate againt harassment is key.
“When you look at eSports today, you see teenge boys being showered with thousands of dollars in prizes. What can possibly go wrong there??? In all seriousness, I’ve tried to ink this to real sports. How can we see how close we are to real sports? Because we’ve got match fixing, we’ve got drug taking involved: ritalin, adderal. When you have money, aspiration and audience, people are going to try and cut corners. That’s every sport.
“So I think that, as an industry, we completely need to figure out a governing body that’s going to help police, patrol and administrate. We’ve already built out a set of terms and conditions. If you want to compete, you need to adhere to them. We have vaues as a company. We need to be able to protect the people playing. Like any sport, it will evolve, but it’s going to be a problem for a while. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. EA is going to be front and centre.”